DESPITE Smithsonian Institution officials' belated campaign to put the Enola Gay debacle behind them, the political, financial and psychological fallout continues.
And so it should. The lack of historical standards that surfaced with the furor over the airplane that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima betrays an internal intellectual rot that requires more than temporary cosmetic changes.Irresponsible curators promoting a private anti-nuclear agenda badly compromised the reputation of the famous museum known as the nation's attic. And the questions that still need answering are: What and who killed this grand institution's traditional sense of history and commitment to facts over opinions?
Conservatives are trying to make this episode part of their cultural war, blaming the Smithsonian's exercise in so-called political correctness on radical notions popular in certain academic circles.
But this was not a political conservative-liberal thing. Democrats have been as outraged as Republicans.
This was a professional failure to measure up to a minimal level of historical integrity that appalled American veterans, their families, military historians and anyone remotely familiar with the World War II era. It could not have been a more fundamental abuse of the museum's public responsibility.
The Smithsonian still faces hearings demanded by members of Congress outraged by what they consider not only an abuse of history but of the museum's budget. A House appropriations subcommittee has already approved a measure calling for a $32 million cut in the Smithsonian's $371 million budget, 77 percent of which comes from the taxpayers.
As a conciliatory gesture, new Smithsonian Secretary I. Michael Heyman announced recently he would revise a second major exhibit widely criticized as insulting and degrading to scientists.
And an exhibit commemorating the Vietnam war that was to have opened in two years has been postponed so the institution can take its time to try to get it right.
Much of the Smithsonian's problem with the Enola Gay was arrogance - an internal reliance on a small, biased cadre obsessed with the notion that academic freedom includes the right to impose narrow-minded views on the rest of us yokels. For instance, no prominent military historian was consulted, nor anyone with credentials outside the elite circle who might offer a differing view.
The Smithsonian is now cranking up for its 150th anniversary next year and, in addition to its troubles with Congress, private fund raising not going well.
A nationwide poll by Peter Hart Associates for the Smithsonian tries to assess the public damage. Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed had heard about the outrage over the Enola Gay exhibit.
Among those who had heard of the fuss, 14 percent said they viewed the Smithsonian less favorably after the episode, while only 5 percent felt more favorable. The rest indicated it didn't much affect their opinion.
This is not good, although not fatal. To win back public trust, the Smithsonian has a great deal of work to do. It must give up the moralizing and lecturing and return to facts. We can figure out the basics for ourselves.